Thursday, February 03, 2005

Mentoring

The angle here is the level of influence that former MUSU President Ben Cass had over Darren Ray, and then the level of influence Darren had over Scotty "Two Times" Crawford. Previous articles have dealt with the influence that Andrew Landeryou had over Ben Cass.

Andrew Landeryou is (was?) an influential member of Labor Unity and is widely believed to be behind large amounts of branch-stacking and a recent attempt to take over the left-wing Liquor, Hospitality and Miscellaneous-worker's Union. Landeryou is being pursued by police after failing to appear in court.

Perry also highlights the lack of proper process in corruptly awarding leasing contracts, largely committed by Ray and Crawford.

I have two comments to make.

Firstly, to those who would continue to use MUSU and its troubles as a reason to justify the so-called Voluntary Student Unionism legislation, I challenge you to find two other instances of gross corruption in student organisations in the last ten years. Furthermore, if a single financial collapse or liquidation is enough for proponents of VSU to condemn and dismantle all student unions, then the hundreds (even thousands) of instances of corporate corruption, financial failure, theft, misappropriation, bad conduct, cartel behaviour, environmental destruction, price-fixing and systematic discrimination is surely an argument for the condemnation and dismantling of capitalism. QED.

Secondly, I would note that the only people who have been involved at MUSU in any misbehaviour or illegal conduct are members of Labor Unity, the right-wing faction of the ALP. To my knowledge, no member of the ALP left, or the left in general has committed any crime or been involved in any of the illegal activities at MUSU in 2002-03. I would also note that an alliance of Unity and members of the Liberal Students Federation in 2003-04 oversaw (and colluded in) not only many of the worst excesses of Crawford's year but also the complete disgrace that was 2004, where, in so far as it has been communicated to me, Liberal Students office bearers breeched their duties as office bearers and broke election promises, intimidated staff, misused union funds, harrassed students during elections and generally acted poorly.

9 Comments:

The Liberals "hear no evil, see no evil" routine was a joke. Clearly they knew something odd was going on but they were happy to do their own little looting of student resources while the place was coming down around them. There used to be a day when the young Liberals used to speak with a voice of (semi-) reason and not just quack like ducks. However, clearly it shows that in 20 years they are not going to be the leaders in society that they believe they are going to be.

It's not just about corruption though Alex. I'm sure it's there but maybe some people are just better at hiding it.

But what about the fact that student unions are non representive.

For example 2001, smashing the vice-chancellors office. This is not an action that is condoned by the majority of students, and also harmed MUSU's dealings with the university at the time.

In 2004, 391 people voted for DUSA's 2005 president, and I have it on good authority that this is the highest number of votes they have ever had. 391 people out of a 40000 student population. Less than 1% of the student body is hardly what I would call representitve.